A Letter to Eugène Maus, Decorated with Two Apples

The Manets lodged in Bellevue in a small house at 41 route des Gardes during the summer of 1880. The letters Manet embellished with watercolors of flowers and fruit from his garden at Bellevue and sent to his friends are among the most prized of his works because of their enchanting informality. At least forty letters can be dated with some certainty to his time in Bellevue. This is the first of two addressed to Eugène Maus, a fellow painter, who showed in Paris in the 1880 Salon. He died the following year of a "maladie nerveuse". Manet shares with Maus his concern about his own submission to the 1880 Salon in Ghent: "Chez le Père Lathuile" 1879 (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tournai).

Credit: Purchase, Guy Wildenstein Gift, 2003